


Come Home

by AlyxStar



Series: Lost You Somewhere [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, and probably mention of a few other characters, but these will be the main ones mentioned I think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-05-27 19:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6296914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyxStar/pseuds/AlyxStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Come find me when you wake up."</p><p>Fenris intends to do exactly that.</p><p>(Sequel to Come Find Me)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read Come Find Me, I'd suggest you do so, as this occurs directly after.
> 
> And I told myself it would only be one chapter, but then my mind started firing off other ideas and none of them would fit in the one chapter and how do I word everything -
> 
> Yeah. Another multi-chapter thing. Why do I do this to myself x.x

He wakes with a gasp, cold sweat slick along his skin and the brands lighting the room in rapid pulses of white and flickering blue. There is an ache deep around his chest where the magic had seized him for flight through the air, the only testament to the events in his dream being _real_. Impossible, and yet he cannot deny it, not with the _warmth_ in the brands when they are cold to the touch of most magic, the unique response to Hawke’s abilities, the sign that he finds comfort in _every_ part of her being.

_Hawke, alive._

Against all odds, despite Varric’s letter and the common belief she had perished in the Fade. No demon could mimic her or the magic in her blood, no spirit could replicate it. She was _alive_ and she needed _help_. The covers tangle around his legs, a muttered oath falling from his lips as he kicks and struggles free of them, barely remembering to keep quiet for the other occupant of the modest house slumbering in the bedroom directly opposite theirs.

So much to do, letters to write, a journey to plan, coin to exchange, words to ponder and pick apart and choose and rework. So little _time_. A match strike and the candle by the bedside is lit when his brands go quiet and dormant, the pulses slowing until not even a muted glow remains. Only when his breathing evens out and he remembers that the air he inhales is not chokingly thick with magic like the kind in the Fade does he dare move, flinching when feet connect with cold stone. But there is no time to entertain comfort, taking the candle across the room to dance merrily by the wardrobe as he pulls the doors open, eyes finding the armour he had hoped to not wear again so soon (though he should have known, _did_ know somewhere, that it would be required the day Hawke announced her imminent departure for Skyhold). Carefully tended leather is a dark stain beside the merry Fall colours taking up her half of the wardrobe, a reminder of hard-won battles and so much bloodshed, a past he longs to keep where it belongs for a peaceful life with the family he has chosen, never dared to hope for.

But regrets are not welcome here, not when Hawke is out there still. He makes short work of pulling belts and buckles into place, stretching to take a moment for his skin to adapt to the snug fit again, for the brands to flicker and settle in remembrance of this protection he’d purchased when the old set could no longer be treated, too battle-worn to shield him even from the scrape of a kicked stone glancing against his ribs. The thick cloak should come next, and the pack, but his eyes fall to Leandra’s old writing desk – the only reminder from Kirkwall Hawke had wanted to keep, aside from the portrait with both siblings still alive and smiling – and he pauses. Words come to him in her neat script, formed by a silent mouth when he cracks open a fresh inkpot and dips into it, quill a familiar scratch-scratch on parchment as he writes names one by one, a brief explanation to follow. A wax seal for each, a wish for swiftness, and away they are stowed into his pack. Essentials for the journey follow, food and hygiene, two bedrolls, waterskins, darting in and out and around with Fang watching him from where he is sprawled, guarding his daughter’s door until finally, _finally_ , he is by it and loathing that he must disturb her when the world outside is still silent of dawn’s birdsong. Too young to cry herself to sleep, and yet here they are. A wife and mother short, sleepless nights plagued by memories and fears both, about to run on only a few hours of rest, perhaps never to return -

No.

He _will_ rescue Hawke from the Fade, even if he must storm the gates himself with the lyrium brands fuelling the way. He _will_ return with her and they _will_ come home together, all of them, Carver and Varania too, and they will sit outside in the sun and share a meal and laugh over fond stories and less chaotic times.

Liarana rests on her side, one hand trapped under her face and the other fisted loose in her blanket, hair a sleep-messed tangle around her head. He takes a moment, one precious moment, to simply watch her in this untroubled sleep she’s managed to settle into so many weeks since her mother’s departure, a sight that breaks his heart even as it lessens the ache he’s been struggling with for what feels like an age. He says her name, softly, reaching out to stroke over ink-black hair and draw her from whatever images dance behind her closed eyelids. Repeats it when all he gets is a nose twitch, and there’s a muffled groan of protest and her face scrunching as she shoves it further into her pillow. Fenris chuckles at that, tries again, and then there’s a pair of green eyes – almost perfect mirrors of his own – blinking sleepily up at him, what child’s annoyance she feels ruined by her yawn.

“Pa?”

“We need to get ready, darling. You can sleep on the way, but we need to get you dressed first, okay?” Warm woollen leggings, fur-lined boots, and miniature cloak the village’s shopkeeper had ordered in specially for her to ward off chill nights and unforgiving winds and a tunic of her own choosing.

“Wha’s going on, Pa?”

“I will explain when we get there. Come now, time is precious.”

* * *

He knows that Darwin knows. The moment the old man’s eyes land on the pack he shoulders and the dozing form draped over the large Mabari loyally keeping stride with him, understanding and resignation add more brief lines to his forehead. A weathered hand is offered, a shake Fenris accepts with only a moment’s hesitation and hidden grit of teeth, and then he’s being shown to the stable, low words spoken and the letters handed over, with sufficient coin for the courier lad come morning. He transfers his daughter’s slight weight to the saddle without difficulty, chosen horse a sturdy grey mare with wise eyes and curious nose investigating his canine companion, snuffle exchanged for a slobbery lick he absolutely detested when brought near his own face.

"She’s not the fastest, but she’ll take you where you need to go sure as a druffalo.” _Hawke asked for the fastest_. It is not said, not even hinted at, but he knows it is there. He knows his wife, knows the impatience that had brought them no end of trouble in Kirkwall, reduced her to griping complaints and snapping at stall owners in the last month of her pregnancy.

“She is perfect. Thank you, Darwin, for everything.”

“And you, boy. Always were a quiet one, but you kept this village safe more than the rest like to admit. You ever find your way back, there’ll be an ale and stew waiting for you.” And that’s as far as Fenris is willing to drag out goodbyes he never has been good at, swinging up into the saddle behind Liarana, settling one arm around her waist and the free hand to the reigns, turning the mare around and coaxing her into an easy trot. One that doesn’t break his daughter’s slumber, one Fang can keep pace with easily.

He doesn’t look back to the village they had settled near to, nor does he cast his gaze to the trees that hide where they’d hoped to call home for the rest of their days. Only forward.

_Wait for us, Hawke. Just a while longer._


	2. Chapter 2

It is not Carver's hand - a ridiculously large thing, almost like a dinner plate - on his arm that stops him, not with the lyrium bright and blazing and fury pounding a drumbeat in his temples and baring his teeth at the other elf half hidden behind fellow Mages and a hulking Qunari.  No, he would be able to shrug off that hand easily, pass his own right through it and snap a wrist if he so chose to.

No, there are small fingers on his belt in a desperate clutch, a shrill cry of  _Papa_ drawing him to absolute stillness even when there is an itch in his fingers to draw his blade and hold it a breath from  _The Inquisitor's_ throat.  She did this.  She abandoned Hawke in the Fade.  She  _did **this**_.  Liarana's breath quivers, and he can almost feel the sob she muffles behind her free hand before she is crowding close to his legs and grabbing hold of his cloak instead.

"Papa, I'm scared."  He half turns, hands easily finding her waist and hoisting her weight easily to his hip.  Her face tucks into his neck, arms and legs gripping around him tight, and just like that she is crying.  What child wouldn't, to have their mother stolen from them weeks prior only to discover she is still alive, be forced to abandon their home, and then come face to face with the culprits of their mother's disappearance to find a  _Qunari_ and  _Templar_ with them?  No soothing words are whispered to her, though, he does not have the presence of mind for it.  Cannot take his eyes from the blood red markings on fine-boned features and the alarm that has her ears drawn down toward her shoulders, lips pale and hands gripping raised staff.  Yet for all that she has a three other Mages with her, and three warriors, he has his lyrium, and Carver, and Merrill.  Varric too, slowly shuffling away from the Inquisitor though Bianca has not come off from his shoulder, and behind Fenris, the familiar cool spark of his sister's magic.  A shock to see them, but then he should have suspected that Hawke would not reach out to him alone, she was not foolish in matters of life and death.

When it is apparent that he will no longer charge the elf and tear through the ranks of her protectors, Carver removes his hand from Fenris in favour of standing bodily in front of him, and Varania's hand touches the small of his back before stroking through Liarana's hair and crooning soft nonsense to her, Merrill stepping beside Carver and with her face pinched into such a severe set he can  _see_ the Keeper she was supposed to be.  Kind and nurturing, but  _brutal_ and merciless when faced with opposition, with threat, with  _death_.  He is not alone in this, he has never been alone in his grief, and for a passing moment he wonders if Carver received a similar letter as he, if Carver forgot how to stand under his own power and spent a shamefully long time ignoring his duties in favour of crying foreign tears.

He hisses, quiet and angry, moving so that he might  _see_ , but Carver blocks him again and so he is forced to look around the ridiculously tall fool, glare once again fixing on  _her_.

"You will take me to the Hinterlands and you will fix this mess you have made.  You will bring her back."  A cool demand, easily heard, another desperate noise from his daughter, and her fingers curl tighter in his travelling cloak.

"The Hinter-  _why_ _?_ "

"You left my  _sister_ in the Fade, witch."

"Now, Junior, let's talk about this for a minu-"

"Who's side are you  _on_ Varric?  Some shiny new hero appears so let's tag along with her and forget the years spent by our side?  Let's forget how we fought and bled together and had drinks together, _mourned_ together?  You call yourself  _a friend_?"  Even Fenris winces at that, ears twitching at the quiet inhale that is only Varric's, and knows that he will be stricken, jaw slack and controlled mask of indifference shattered by a very low blow.  The kind that only a brother Hawke can deal.  Then there is Merrill, slender fingers settling delicately upon Carver's elbow, his stance relaxing  _minutely_ as she turns to where Varric presumably still stands - ah, he can see now, Carver too distracted to block him a third time as he slinks around him.  Yes, Varric looks as though someone had filled his stomach with ice.  It makes the twisted mass of  _something_ in his heart glad, in a vindictively unfair fashion.  They all deserved to hurt in this.  Such grief was too heavy to bear alone.

But was it grief?  When Hawke was not truly lost.

" _What_ are you talking about?"

"Oh, of course,  _Knight-Captain Cullen_ is here.  So much for the Inquisition being something to mend the rift between Templars and Mages."

"I suggest you open your eyes,  _child_ , and see the four Mages standing beside him."

"Who are you -"

 **"Enough!"** Blood magic, thick and  _stifling,_ drawing alarmed cries and rustling fabrics from the spectators behind, hurried footsteps and the creak of doors.  Retreat.  Merrill allows the blood from her own palm to swarm high above her head before she makes a fist and disperses it into harmless nothing.  Heavy silence, and she graces them all with a smile some would call beautiful and others chilling, especially after her display.  "We are here for Hawke, and only for Hawke.  We have reason to believe she still lives in the Fade, though she grows weaker the longer we leave her to face  _an army of demons alone_."

"How do you know this?"

"How we know does not matter.  What does is  _that_ we know.  Our friend, our sister, our wife, our mother.  She is out there, and she needs us.  Hawke never abandoned any of us, not once, and she needs us now.  There is an open Rift in the Hinterlands, yes?  She waits for us there, holding back demons.  It is your job to deal with demons, is it not?  So why not help us?  You save a few extra farmers from slaughter, a few more Mages from possession, and we get Hawke back.  As we should have  _weeks_ ago."

* * *

_You stay here, Fenris.  I will not have my little niece lose both her parents if this goes bad.  And keep an eye on Cullen.  I don't trust that bastard as far as I can throw him, reformed my pasty white ass.  I'll bring Amelie home.  I promise._


	3. Chapter 3

Carver Hawke is... very  _large_ for a human.  She had always believed him shorter than Cullen, with the few times Varric had spoken of him and the brief mentions in  _Tale of the Champion_.  But he is taller, and she has to tip her head up to look at him.  His face is a dark scowl, arranged that way since his last words spoken to the little girl - his niece - and their departure from Skyhold.  Agitation, clear as the noonday sun even in the way he walks, a restless prowl that has his long legs eating up the ground and for every one of his strides she takes two.  It is a miracle the other Dalish elf - Merrill was it? - can even keep pace with him, but then, if they are a mated pair, she would be used to his pace wouldn't she?

She can understand his agitation, his sister is trapped in the Fade, distracting a truly horrifying demon while she and Stroud ran for the only escape.  To think the human woman could still be  _alive_ , after weeks with no means of escape, surrounded on all sides by demons and spirits alike... it turns Mewyn's stomach to think of it.  Better to redirect her thoughts with the woman's brother, mountain of a man that he is.

"Carver?"

"Mn?"

"In Varric's tales... you became a Templar, but it was never clear why?"  He pauses, so very briefly, shockingly blue eyes looking first to her and then to Merrill, one corner of his mouth tugging upward in what she could only describe as a short-lived grin.

"You think it's strange, don't you?  With the company I kept before I joined?"

"Well... yes.  If the stories of Kirkwall's Circle are to be believed -"

"Oh they are."  And just like that the scowl is back and he is walking even faster than he had been, leaving Mewyn certain that by the time they reach camp she will be ready for collapsing into a tent and sleeping off the muscle fatigue for a week.  "It's worse than the stories, actually.  Or was.  Not much of a Circle left anywhere, is there?  I joined to help, believe it or not.  One of the few genuine Templars there, I reckon, you wouldn't believe some of the shit I saw.  You know, the things only  _whispered_ about behind closed doors and cupped hands and never in the same room as a Templar or anyone involved with the Chantry."  He shudders quite literally from head to toe, silence falling over them so absolutely she might as well have fashioned a spell for muteness and cast it over the group.  They travel like that for the better part of an hour, long enough that the sound of running water registers on the edge of her hearing and the occasional growth of Elfroot gives way to Spindleweed and Black Lotus, foxes and nugs searching for food at their leisure rather than scampering quickly and darting for cover in the areas Mewyn has come to associate with bear territory given how there are so flaming many of them.  Only when she has settled into the certainty that they will reach camp without uttering another word to one another does Merrill stir from wherever her own thoughts have taken her, her glance up at Carver accented with a smile so soft that to see it feels like an intrusion into privacy they do not have.  Her fingers slip between Carver's with a partner's ease, something Mewyn  _envies_ as much as wishes she could do with another, to give and to take such a simple, easy comfort.

"What better way to keep my sister outside the Circle, than for me to be _inside?_   That's why I joined them.  Then I stayed to help the mages already trapped.  You don't look someone in the eye, see that kind of  _hopelessness_ , and turn your back on them.  You just don't."

"So  _you're_ the reason so many mages vanished without a trace!"  She had heard of it from Cullen, of course.  Many of the Templars had went to him with suspicion that the Hawke brother was helping mages escape the Gallows and into the waiting rescue of his sister's band of mayhem misfits and then onward, to vanish without a trace, phylacteries absent.  There had never been enough proof to confront Carver about it, and she suspected that even had there been that Cullen wouldn't have acted.  A Templar he had been, but never a  _cruel_ man.

"Oh, that, no.  My involvement stopped when they boarded a ship from the Gallows without being made a Tranquil on the spot.  The disappearances had nothing to do with me."

"I see."  Such unwavering loyalty, to risk his life for her then, and not even for a few months.  For  _years_.  Now, again, marching straight to a tear in the Veil without hesitation, to drag his sister from the very lair of demons keen on either possessing people or tearing them limb from limb and muscle from bone.  Marching straight-backed to certain death.  A loyalty Mewyn herself has never known, not with her Clan.  Of course they would fight to the bitter end to keep Templars from getting any Dalish born mage in the first instance, but once a mage was caught all ties were severed, no friends or family to be seen again.  Abandoned to one's fate.

* * *

Later, when they are retiring for the night and extinguishing the fire with careful ice spells and soil, her mind goes to the Tranquil girl in Skyhold's vast library, usually always found with an impressive collection of books and scattered papers, poking at some poor creature's guts or brain matter (even an eyeball on occasion, much to Mewyn's horror).  Face wiped clean of any emotion, eyes utterly  _empty_ , passive to a fault, and so ready to  _serve_.  She thinks of the Tranquil girl, of Carver's thunderous look, of the  _stories_ she has heard and the rumours Madame de Fer waved away with "that is not the norm, my dear".

She shivers.

It has nothing to do with the chill breeze.


End file.
